Do you hear what I hear?

Misophonia also known as selective sound sensitivity syndrome, starts with a trigger. It's often an oral sound - the noise someone makes when they eat, breathe, chew, yawn, or whistle. If you have a mild reaction you might feel anxious, uncomfortable, the urge to flee, or disgust. If your response is more severe, you might feel rage, anger, hatred.

I never thought much about this disorder because until social media, I didn't know it was a disorder. I always thought certain sounds irritated people just because they were irritating in and of themselves. And I know what noises annoy me:....the sound of someone typing, the sound of the x-box controller, gum chewing that would make you think a cow is somewhere near, and the sound of a spoon scraping a bowl or container.

While I don't know that I feel rage over any of these, I am known to leave a room or put on headphones to listen to music to drown out the offending sound. It works but sometimes I hate the fact that I think I am isolating myself from people I love because of this issue.

As I started to read a new book today, the author wrote something that made me think of this particular syndrome. In Without Rival, Lisa Bevere writes, "There is a very real battle going on for the strength of your soul. It is time you took your place in this world. Let's expose the lies and distractions and find out who you really are."

In John 8:44 Jesus describes Satan as a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father and the father of lies. 

What struck me is this. If you have a sound that irritates you, you immediately recognize it and can determine its source. However, when Satan whispers lies, we don't immediately recognize them for what they are. It could be because it's something we wanted to hear or because it's something we already believed to be true. But either way, we are likely to end up in a heap of trouble if we don't develop a form of holy misophonia towards his voice.

This is why I think it's so imperative that we flood our minds with the things of God. We must stay continually connected to Him through His Word and prayer. We must be deliberate about what we see and hear and continue evaluate and analyze any information that is entering our minds before it can ever make its way to our hearts. We have an enemy and he is doing everything he can to discredit our view of God, ourselves, and our individual callings.

I don't know why this hit me so hard today. I would suppose it's because I know how susceptible I have been to taking his half-truths and seeing them as reality. But as our worship pastor said a few weeks ago, Satan is famous for prophelying, and he is preaching the gospel of worst case scenario. And if we know this is his method of operation, it's time to start fighting back. God never intended for us to be Satan's victims but rather the ones who would stand firm in the knowledge of who our God is and who we are in Him: victorious overcomers in Christ who will not be taken down by a thief that only came to kill, steal, and destroy.